


A Last Blood Benediction

by Letummordre



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Creepy shit, Cults, Gen, Knights of Ren - Freeform, M/M, Small Towns, That's Not How The Force Works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 13:19:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10465953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letummordre/pseuds/Letummordre
Summary: Someone is still staring at him. Hux's mind is playing tricks on him again, just like it did all throughout his childhood, and nothing had ever happened to him then. Nothing would happen to him now. It was all his imagination tormenting him as always.Sometimes he hates his mother.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This one is a little weird, even for me. Hopefully you all like it. 
> 
> This fic has a lot of language-- ha, teenagers-- and the violence happens towards the end.

The air is thick, heavy with fog that surrounds the woods like some kind of protective blanket. It looms there, dark grey and turning the trees a sort of bluish hue. Armitage Hux doesn’t believe in superstition and fairy tale, but if he did the way the dark crept along the treeline like a prowling beast would have sent his stomach tumbling within itself. 

As it were, the trees were just trees and the darkness is from the sun being obscured in the sky. There are no creatures licking at shadows and waiting for their chance to snatch him away. The road is long and boring, and Hux is getting too imaginative again.

His father had tried to rip that out of him, but it stayed within him stubbornly.

_ “I never should have slept with an artist,” _ Brendol Hux had spat, “ _ of course she’d pass that bullshit on to you.” _ He ripped that picture to shreds, the one that had gripped it’s way into his nightmares every night for a decade. A tall man, standing at the edge of the trees and turning back to him in horror. His eyes were yellow, lips parted to expose sharpened teeth.

_ The bad man. _ Hux had called him, before he was smart enough to shut his mouth and never mention it in front of his father or his stepmother ever again.  _ The shadow man who lives by the light of the moon. _

Now it was stupid. Too many horror movies about wolf men when he was left to his own devices, scaring himself for entertainment because he’d never had friends. It was as pathetic as his father had ever said, and Hux suspected part of the sudden move was less about his father’s ambition and more shame that Hux wasn’t as popular and vicious as Brendol had been when he was in school.

His stepmother Maratelle had been more sympathetic, but she only had so much say in Brendol’s world in which they were both always on standby watching him attempt to control everything. His father’s ambition would be inspiring, if the man weren’t also a moron. Hux kept that much to himself.

He’s jolted out of his thoughts as Brendol parks the car outside of an enormous old fashioned mansion. The pathway up to it is all rubble, surrounded by kept grass and an old rusted mailbox that only states ‘O/S’ on the side.

“Savages.” Brendol mutters, eyeing the mailbox as if it’s a personal offense. Hux is more distracted by the curtains re-closing on the highest floor, whoever had been at the window had already moved out of sight.

“O/S?” Hux questions, unbuckling his seatbelt as his father does.

“Organa and Solo probably. The people who supposedly run this town.” He motions to the road leading further into the woods, “If you can call it that.”

Hux glances up at the curtained window again, then back to the door. “Why did you want to take control of this town, when it hardly is one?”

For all his reflexes, he doesn’t quite manage to dodge Brendol’s meaty fist gripping his collar hard and pulling him closer. “There are methods,  _ boy _ .” Brendol says, like a warning. “Do not question mine.”

Maratelle glances at him, meets his eyes and gives the slightest headshake ‘no’.

“Father.” Hux says, in acknowledgement but perhaps not agreement. If Brendol picks up on it, he doesn’t care enough to say anything as he steps out of the car and starts onto the pathway to the house. Maratelle is nearly instantly at his side, her hand in his elbow and staring forward. As Hux shuts the car door behind him, he can feel someone staring at him from the treeline.

The woods are as empty as they were when they drove up to it, and he knows it as he scans the trees anyway. No one is there.

"Stupid.” Hux mutters to himself, ignoring his heart speeding double in his chest and following after his father.

Someone is still staring at him. His mind is playing tricks on him again, just like it did all throughout his childhood, and nothing had ever happened to him then. Nothing would happen to him now. It was all his imagination tormenting him as always.

Sometimes he hates his mother.

* * *

“Welcome,” the woman who greets them has the stance of someone who was a long-time military woman. Her expression is sharp under the guise of warmth that she puts on for them, and Hux knows it from his own father’s face. He’s on the verge of snarling, but contains himself as he always does when he wants something. “You wanted to talk about buying a house here, if I remember clearly.” 

“Indeed,” Brendol bites off, giving a venomous attempt at a smile. “You remember correctly. Is your husband here?”

She gives the faintest of smirks, and beckons them inside. “It will be just us discussing matters. Han is away on business.”  

Brendol is visibly disappointed, and Hux wants to roll his eyes. “Do you have any children? Armitage here gets bored easily.” Brendol says, as if Hux is four and not seventeen years old.

Hux grits his teeth, straightening his posture even tighter to the point of pain. Something flickers in Leia’s eyes as she meets Hux’s, and then back at Brendol. “My son isn’t here.” She says, neutrally. “But Armitage, you are welcome to look around, or step outside if you’d like.”

He gives her a polite nod, forcing a smile for her onto his face at his father’s open glare at him. “Thank you, Mrs. ...Organa?”

She chuckles, “Yes. That is my last name, but you may call me Leia.”

“Get, boy.” Brendol mutters, barely loud enough for him to hear. Hux feels that  _ feeling _ bristle along his spine again at the prospect of going outside, and instead gets up and aimlessly wanders the room before heading out into the hall. He examines the pictures, Leia when she was younger and a handsome man with a small child.

Big eared, dotted with dark freckles like constellations, a gap in his front teeth as he looks up adoringly at what must be his mother. He has short dark hair, big brown eyes like a doe’s.

Hux sighs, turning away from them and turns instead to the windows facing outside the house. All of the windows downstairs have their curtains open, welcoming the light. Up the stairs, there is no similar light. Hux thinks of whoever had been standing at the windows, watching them approach from the darkness.

He swallows, putting his hand on the railing of the staircase and putting one foot onto the stairs. Every step he expects something to leap out at him, something to reach out and touch him. Something to explain the dread in the pit of his stomach…

But he steps onto the landing completely incident free. The window that someone had been watching them from is vacant, as if nothing had ever been there at all.

_ Had there even been? _ He wondered,  _ Or was that another product of his imagination? _

He steps away from the window, peeking his head into rooms as he passes.

For the most part, they seem like guest bedrooms. He stops at what appears to be the first lived in bedroom, crimson and red. Well taken care of, the bed made up with neat little corners that remind Hux of a hotel room. More pictures on the nightstand and the dresser. He turns to the last door in the hall, at the very end. The door is mostly closed, sounds of The Clash’s  _ Rock the Casbah _ playing softly from beyond it.

_ My son isn’t here _ . She’d said, but it seems that maybe he was. Hux bit his bottom lip, curiosity claiming him enough to step closer and hold his breath as he ducked his head in the doorway like Millie sometimes did when she checked up on him.

The music was louder, the room looking like someone had recently thrown everything in all directions. No one was there, however. The walls were dark grey, the baseboards black. The sheets were black too, but nothing decorated the walls.

Three enormous gashes clipped through the dresser drawers as if something had attacked it, wood and paint scooped from it as if whatever the creature was had sliced through it with the efficiency of a hot knife in butter.

“What the fuck--” Hux whispered to himself, and froze as he heard steps behind him. He counted to three and turned on his heels, jumping as he faced--

Nothing.

“What the fuck?” Hux repeated, heart pounding hard in his head. He could feel eyes on him clearly, even though nothing stood in front of him.

“Hello?” He asks, softly.

Nothing answers.

“God, Hux.” He hisses, brushing a hand through his short red hair. “Get it together, you idiot.”

He glances back once at the grey room and walks away from it back to the staircase, shivering again at the nerves making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Every bone in his body screamed that there was something  _ wrong _ … and what? The empty hallway obviously was  _ such _ a threat to him.

He shook his head, heading back down and stepping outside instead to sit in the car and find Millicent’s cage. She blinked at him, serene from on top of his neatly backed suitcase. Her cage lined lushly with soft sherpa and cloth. “Are you comfortable?” He asks her, taking her leisurely blink at him as a ‘yes’. “There’s something strange about this place, Millie.” He tells her, his only confidant. “Or I’m just jumpy.”

He sighs, turning to sit forward in his seat.

The curtain in the top window closes shut.

* * *

The house they end up in is lined up with a dozen other identical houses on a quiet street as foggy as the woods that surround it. It’s a small town, all the other houses clustered unlike the Solo Organa house at the forefront of the town. The school is a ten minute walk away at most, and so is the grocery store or other necessities. 

It’s the type of town that drives Hux absolutely insane. By the start of the school year, everyone will know about him and likely have rumors about him before he even has a chance to meet them. It’s not like it’s anything new-- his last school had been full of students with parents who were political rivals to his father, or some sort of wannabe someone and had hated him on instinct.

This place will likely be exactly the same. He doesn’t care, he has his books and Millicent and it’s all he needs.

“You better make friends this time,” his father says at dinner, as if reading his mind. “I don’t want anyone here thinking you’re some sort of freak.”

Hux’s upper lip twitches upward the slightest bit but he forces out a polite, “Of course, Father.”

“You’re already scrawny as a slip of paper, and weird in the head. I’d rather not have anyone underestimate me because of you.” Brendol says, eyeing him with the sort of look reserved for unwanted insects. Maratelle sighs, quietly.

Hux narrows his eyes in the slightest, stabbing into his steak with more force than necessary. “ _ Of course _ , Father.” He says again, trying to disguise the poorly veiled irritation with complacency. Brendol either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.

“So before you get to that so called school they have here, you ought to go find the other children around here.” Brendol says, the way that he wants to order Hux but thinks it may work better if he tries more for a request instead. “Get acquainted.”

Hux takes a deep breath in, gives a nod and turns back to his food. Eating it is bland and tasteless, as it usually is.

“What was that, boy?” Brendol bellows, hands slamming down on the table hard enough to rattle the silverware.

“Yes, Father.” Hux says instead, emptily.

“That’s what I thought.” Brendol glowers at him, but seems otherwise satisfied.

That night, for the first time in years, Hux dreams of the shadow man and the moon.

* * *

“So you’re the new boy.” A girl with short blond hair says, leaning over the table toward him. Her muscles bulge, and she smiles a deadly sharp thing when he looks back into her face. “And not one of Ren’s either.” 

“What the hell is a Ren?” Hux asks, eyes narrowing.

She laughs, sitting across from him as if it’s an invitation. “You really are new if you don’t know about Kylo Ren and his so called Knights.” She yawns, as if this is an old topic. It likely is. “Kylo is Solo and Organa’s kid. He has a mean streak a mile wide, and the sadism to indulge it if you’re on his shit list. He’s mental, but not too bad if you don’t antagonize him.”

Hux raises his eyebrow, “So… what. You don’t care if there’s a new kid because you already hate this Ren guy?”

“I don’t hate him,” Phasma says, very seriously. “A lot of people here do, though. So yeah, you’re probably safe.”

Hux looks down at his food, looks back at her. “There’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

She chuckles, tilting her head at him. “Nah, of course not. I’ll take care of you. Make sure Big Bad Ren doesn’t eat you alive.”

“Is that a fucking red haired joke?” Hux asks, nostrils flaring.

She laughs harder, wiping one eye. “Of course it is.” She says, giving him that smile that lets him know she is very much dangerous again.

“Wonderful.” Hux says, rolling his eyes and tucking into his food with little to no enthusiasm.

“My name is Phasma, by the way.” The girl says, softer.

“Hux.” He says simply, and avoids looking back into her face.

* * *

It takes him an entire week to run into Ren, despite how small the school is. He knows immediately who he is, all dark hair and clothes with those brown eyes from the picture he’d seen in Solo and Organa’s house. He looks on the verge of murder, but stops abruptly when he meets Hux’s eyes.

He looks surprised, as if he’s seen Hux before somewhere.

“Kylo.” Hux says gruffly, to be polite.

Kylo tilts his head at him like a puppy, eyes flicking behind Hux at someone else before meeting his eyes again. “Armitage.” He says, in a deep voice that reaches into Hux’s core and grips at his stomach.

_ He’s heard that voice before, he’s heard his name in that voice, he’s seen Kylo’s face--- _

“You can’t be terrorizing the new boy already, Ren.” Phasma’s voice says, on the border of warning.

Kylo’s face immediately shutters, his full lips twisting into something closer to a snarl. “I didn’t fucking do anything.” He says, eyes narrowed. “Get off my back.”

“You know I have to mediate.” Phasma says, her voice suddenly gentler. Hux looks over at her in confusion, and back to Kylo just quickly enough to see something pass over his face that ends too quickly to determine.

“You don’t have to do shit.” Kylo says, “You  _ chose _ to do this.”

“Kylo--” Phasma starts, but Kylo huffs something close to a growl. His shoulders shift upwards almost defensively, making him even bigger than he already is as he storms off into the crowd.

“Fuck,” Phasma says, frowning.

“What is this about mediating?” Hux asks, confused. “I’ve only just met him. I’m not--”

“It has nothing to do with  _ you _ .” Phasma says sharply, “It’s him and everyone else. I told you he’s dangerous. You can’t trust him.”

Hux remembers the open confused look on Kylo’s face, the tilt of his head, and wonders how dangerous Ren truly is.

* * *

 

“So what is the real issue here?” Hux asks, in yet another monotonous lunch period. “What did Ren do?”

Phasma frowns, putting down her burger. “It’s old shit, Hux. Let it go.”

“Don’t small towns love divulging all of the old shit to newcomers?” Hux asks, setting down his sandwich to cross his arms. “Come on, I’m curious.”

“Not this kind.” Phasma states, as if it is a fact.

“So it’s either he did something truly awful, or--”

“It’s not worth talking about.” Phasma growls, voice far darker. “Let it go.”

Hux stares at her, not breaking eye contact for a long moment before biting into his sandwich forcefully.

“Where did you come from?” She asks instead, shrugging one shoulder. “Everyone knows you moved here, but not from where or why.”

“Does it matter?” Hux asks, “It’s old shit.”

She doesn’t ask again.

* * *

School becomes an endless repeat of the same blur of classes and faces over and over again. Even the weather hardly ever changes, the ever present clouds and fog making him feel like the sun will never shine again.

So be it.

He only wished it didn’t feel like Groundhog day, repeating itself over and over with forced smiles and vague half assed answers to the questions he asks.

No one will tell him whatever mysterious thing that Ren has done to warrant him being the town outcast, and politely change the subject whenever the subject is even slightly approached. The overwhelming kindness from literally everyone makes him either think he’s the school joke and hasn’t quite become aware of it yet, or the people here literally are a cult that is trying to indoctrinate him.

He isn’t fooled by it, or amused. Yet when his father asks over dinner if he has friends, he forces a smile onto his face and gives a summarized report of his supposed ‘friends’. His father is pleased. Maratelle knows it’s a lie.

She doesn’t call him out on it.

But the sad look on her face adheres to his brain when he tries to sleep, and gives him a heavy dark sense of guilt that he hates even more than he hates his father’s superiority complex.

* * *

 

The following night he finds himself at Solo and Organa’s door, and knocks before he can stop himself or question why he’s even doing this.

_ Why he thinks of Kylo’s face, why he remembers his voice, why he can’t let it go-- _

Leia blinks in surprise at him, before offering him a genuine smile. “Well hello, Armitage. Did you need something?”

“I-- uh, is Kylo home?” Hux asks, sheepishly.

Leia looks even more surprised, but opens the door in invitation. “He’s upstairs.” She says, “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Maybe.” Hux says, giving her a small smile. “I may have to go back home. My parents don’t know I left yet.”

In actuality, his father wouldn’t even care. Maratelle lets him do as he pleases so long as he doesn’t get hurt. But he doesn’t know how Kylo will react to him with the way that Phasma spoke to him and gripped Hux’s shoulders as if she’d literally tear him away if Kylo lunged.

_ He’s dangerous. You can’t trust him. _ She’d said.

“Alright, just let me know. There’s plenty.” Leia says, stepping away and down toward their kitchen. Hux takes a deep breath and makes his way up the staircase.

Music is playing in that room again, and Hux gathers his courage as he raps at the door before he can talk himself out of it and make excuses. He’s  _ not _ afraid. Why should he be? Because the people at school say he should?

When has he ever listened to rumor?

Kylo opens the door, looking down at him as if he already knew who it was before he even opened the door. Maybe he did. Who else would show up out of the blue to see him?

“Armitage.” He says, again in that voice.

“Kylo.” He says, “And please call me Hux. I hate my first name.”

Kylo gives the slightest of smirks as if that amuses him somehow, and steps aside for him to enter Kylo’s room. The room is cleaner, though only slightly. He turns back to Kylo, who sits on his bed and motions his hand beside him in invitation.

“I take it you’re here for something?” Kylo asks, raising an eyebrow as Hux sits down and smooths his hands over the sheets under him by habit.

“Why is everyone so…” He motions, frustrated. “I don’t get what they have against you. Everyone is so hush hush about it--”

“And so you came to me?” Kylo asks, amused. “They didn’t try to warn you off that I’m dangerous? That I’m evil? That I’d hurt you?”

“I don’t listen to rumor.” Hux states, turning to look at Kylo who is leaning slightly closer to him in interest. “To blindly listen to rumor is to be a sheep. And I’m not a fucking sheep.”

Kylo smiles, all teeth and a little wildly. But it makes him look younger, softer somehow. “No, you’re not.” He agrees, quietly.

“So tell me.” Hux demands, watching Kylo’s face. As expected, the smile slides from his lips and Kylo’s expression turns darker.

“The people in this town aren’t who you think they are.” He says, looking down at his lap instead. “I’m not who you think I am, either.”

“Well I knew Kylo is definitely not your real name. There’s no way someone would  _ actually _ name their child that.” He says, and unexpectedly Kylo gives a loud bark of a laugh that echoes off the walls.

“It’s as much my name as any other name.” He says, more solemnly than Hux expected. “But no, it was given to me. My birth name doesn’t matter. That person is dead.”

“That’s kind of dramatic.” Hux says, picking one of Millie’s hairs off of his slacks. Kylo tracks the motion with his eyes, before looking flatly into Hux’s face.

“You’re not really encouraging me to tell you jack shit.” Kylo says, boredly.

“You’re not dangerous.” Hux says, “So tell me what else is a lie.”

Kylo tilts his head back down toward his lap, lips splitting into a smile again through his curtain of thick dark hair. “You don’t think I’m dangerous?”

“No.” Hux says, and the world tilts dangerously before it rights itself and he is on his back with Kylo pinning him with his weight. Kylo’s hands tighten slightly on Hux’s wrists, black fingernails threatening to press into his skin.

“You don’t think so?” He repeats, staring down intently into Hux’s face. There’s something different about his face, but Hux’s heart isn’t racing in fear. His face stays neutral as he looks over Kylo’s face, a deadly calm blooming in his chest.

“Usually this is preceded by… I don’t know. Romantic intent and a date, is it not?” He asks, boredly.

Kylo’s eyebrows raise toward his hairline, and he gives another laugh. “You’re really not scared of me.” He says, as if this surprises him. “Not even a little.”

“Why should I be?” Hux asks, sitting up slightly as Kylo lets go of his wrists and shifts instead to sit facing him instead of straddling his hips.

“Because I was the first.” Kylo says, simply. “But I found my way back to myself. So Snoke punished me.”

Hux stares slack jawed for a moment before stating, “I have literally no idea what that means. Or what a Snoke is.”

Kylo sighs, glancing toward the window before looking back at Hux. “Look, Hux. A long time ago, this town wasn’t like this. And I… well. Snoke understood me like no one else ever could. He was like a grandfather to me, in a way. He told me I was special.”

“Oh,  _ god _ .” Hux says, expecting the worst.

“ _ No _ , not like that. He never-- it wasn’t that sort of thing.” Kylo sputters, looking almost offended. “I was his apprentice, in a way. He taught me a lot of things.”

“That doesn’t help my assumption, just so you know. And how does this lead to you being on the verge of being tied to the center of the marketplace and burned alive?” Hux questions.

Kylo tenses, “You have no fucking idea how close it actually gets to that, actually. It’s because I wasn’t like him. I didn’t use my… abilities the way he thought I should. I was the first he could experiment on, try to make like him. And I was too stubborn. Snoke has influence here. Even more so than my parents. He’s the elder, of sorts. Been here longer than anyone can remember, and people know him. So he turned everyone against me. Called me a monster, said I was uncontrollable. That I’d kill someone.” His voice turns somewhere close to sadness.

“And your Knights are people who sided with you?” Hux asks.

“My Knights were people who were already loyal to me when Snoke tried to banish me. I’m only still here because they stuck with me. Even when everyone turned against them too.” Kylo eyes Hux, “And if he knows you’re here… he’ll turn on you too.”

“I don’t even know the guy.” Hux says, “And I don’t particularly care either.”

Kylo frowns, shaking his head at him. “You should.” He says, “You should walk out of here and never come back. Tell them I tricked you here, and you learned your lesson. Tell them all you hate me.”

“Stop being so fucking dramatic.” Hux sighs, “I’m not scared of some shadow man with his high school puppets.”

_ The shadow man. _

Kylo tilts his head to meet Hux’s eyes again. “You don’t know what this town is. And I hope you never do.” He says, earnestly. “Now please leave. And don’t come back.”

Hux opens his mouth, but Kylo stands and leaves his own bedroom without saying another word. Hux waits for him, for a moment, but when he doesn’t return Hux steps out into the hallway halfway intent on looking for him just to argue.

But Kylo is gone, none of the other doors are shut, and Hux hadn’t heard him walk downstairs. It’s like Kylo has somehow vanished off of the face of the planet, taking all of Hux’s remaining sanity with him.

_ I was the first. _ He’d said.  _ Called me a monster. _

“How the hell?” Hux asks the empty hallway, and gets exactly the response he thought he would: silence.

Leia doesn’t ask him to stay again, and he lets himself out into the night.

* * *

He makes it about halfway home before a car slows down beside him, and Phasma leans out the passenger side window eyes glinting mischievously. “Get in.” She motions for him, and he shakes his head.

The conversation with Kylo had left him drained, and he just wanted his own bed and time to think alone in his bed.

“Aw come on, Hux.” She says, her voice veering toward the darkness that Kylo’s held when talking about his so called banishment. “Come play.”

Someone in the backseat moves over for him. He eyes the car, remembering a description of it just in case, and gets in the backseat of it. He sees a glimpse of a shadow of someone in the darkness, but when he turns to look out the window it’s gone.

“Where are we going?” He asks tiredly, and Phasma turns in her seat to smile at him.

“A house party of course, this is high school you know. We’re like every other town.”

_ You don’t know what this town is. The people in this town aren’t who you think they are. I’m not who you think I am, either. _ Kylo’s words haunt him, for some inexplicable reason. His odd encounter of Kylo only highlighted how lonely he really is, that Kylo genuinely doesn’t scare him. He’s surviving in this town, just as Hux is. Whoever he is or isn’t, he was the only one who attempted to be straightforward with him at first.

At least until he realized that Hux doesn’t know whatever it was that he was “first” of. That was when he’d started derailing the conversation into vagueness and refused to elaborate. Much the same way that the rest of the town loved to deflect, Kylo had done it as well even if it was supposedly in some odd way to protect him.

Hux really hated when people thought he needed protecting. That Kylo would dare assume that he’s that fragile that he can’t handle himself.

But Kylo’s warning had been genuine, in the least. To stay away from him, to be cautious of them. That they would easily do to him whatever it is that they’d done to Kylo to make him so defensive and angry. That in this day and age would earn an actual fucking  _ banishment _ .

“I see.” Hux says, instead and looks out the window again.

The person driving takes them to a warehouse twenty minutes deeper into the woods, and Hux feels the hair on the back of his neck standing on end again. Something is so desperately off about the woods, especially at night. He feels eyes on him in all directions, as if the woods themselves are watching him. Judging him, and finding him wanting.

“A bit drab place for a party, don’t you think?” He asks, looking at the warehouse.

“You haven’t been inside.” Phasma says, with a wink. “Trust me.”

Bass rattles the walls of the warehouse, an old thing barely held together with wood and scrap. It looks more like a serial killer’s trophy house than an actual cabin in the woods.

_ But I don’t trust you. _ Hux wants to say to Phasma,  _ I don’t trust any of you. I don’t want to be here with you. I don’t know any of you. Not really.  _ But he bites the inside of his cheek instead, and follows her inside. The music is as loud as he expects, and he can feel it vibrating under his feet. Bodies move in all directions, people he’s never seen before dancing close and sweaty with those he has at their school.

These people have come from different cities, maybe. All to dance, get drunk, all of the usual party uselessness that Hux has come to hate hearing about over the years.

“I’ll get you a drink.” Phasma says, smiling as she turns away and makes her way through the crowd.

Hux swallows hard, the thrum of the music making his skin itch. He makes his way through to find a small table crammed against the wall, and sits on the edge of it when he realizes that the chair has been utterly destroyed. There’s claw marks deep in the floor.

Marks like the one in Ren’s dresser.

Hux feels the dread growing deep in his stomach again, weighing him down with it. The more he watches the dancing, the more he notices that there’s something wrong. Eyes glint in the light, open mouths are red, stretched in grins as they dance.

The girl closest to him has pointed teeth, bared in a replication of a smile as she grinds wildly on another red haired man. He whispers something in her ear, and she laughs loudly.

He’s seen that guy before, at school. Some moron with a loud mouth, the same type of tryhard that Hux had seen at his other school. He liked to pretend he was the toughest because the town was too small to have someone to oppose him other than Kylo of course, but Kylo was never anywhere to be seen.

Hux had looked around for him a few times, but it’s like Kylo had learned to make himself a living ghost. Nowhere to been seen, or found.

So the annoying redhead reigned the loudest and so-called toughest.

“You’re supposed to dance, not just sit there.” Phasma says, directly beside him. She laughs when he jolts, and presses a beer into his hands. “Something the matter?” She asks, sweetly.

_ I’m so completely fucked _ , Hux realizes. He glances at the claw marks in the floor again, looks back at Phasma and smiles. “I’m fine.” He says, pretending to take a sip of the beer. “Thanks.” He lifts the beer.

She winks at him.

“So what did ol’ Ren have to say?” She asks, casually as her eyes scan over the crowd.

“What?” Hux asks, biting his bottom lip into his mouth before he realizes what he’s doing, and lets go.

She chuckles, “Oh come on, Hux. No one walks from that direction unless they’ve been outside of town. And you smell like him.”

_ What? _ Hux watches her from the corner of his eye for a moment. “Do you have a superb sense of smell or something?” He asks, casually.

Phasma’s smile turns dangerous. “Ah. What a  _ good boy _ .” She says, fondly. “He really didn’t tell you anything.”

_ I was the first. _ Kylo had said, as if it was common knowledge.

“Fuck.” Hux realizes, all at once. Whatever these people are, Kylo had fully admitted to him that they weren’t who he thought they were. Kylo wasn’t either.

_ Called me a monster. _ Kylo had said, solemnly.

He had meant it literally, the idiot.  

The red haired man and the girl with the sharp teeth keep dancing until the song ends. When it does, they come closer with feigned nonchalance, coming closer to crowd the side that Phasma hadn’t occupied.

Why hadn’t he seen her teeth before, when she spoke in the car?

Had she spoken?

“Aw don’t get twitchy, Hux.” The red haired man-- Thanisson, was it?-- says, as if he’s speaking to a scared animal. “It’s a party! Come on and dance.”

“It’ll be fun.” The girl says, reaching for him.

He’s not blind, he knows a trap when he sees one.

He dodges past Phasma, and flat out runs for the door. Someone laughs behind him, and he feels hands around his waist. “You can’t leave a party early, Hux.” The girl says into his ear, sharp teeth grazing his lobe. “That’s not  _ fun _ .”

“And don’t you know, Hux?” Thanisson says, eagerly. “This party is for you.”

“What?” Hux asks, sharply.

“It was meant to be a surprise, Thanisson.” A voice booms out, and the entire room silences abruptly. Hux’s ears ring, and he can hear his heart thumping wildly in his chest. “But I suppose you just don’t know how to keep your mouth shut, do you? Poor pet.” The voice croons, and Hux whips his head around to look at the looming man.

His face is grotesque, twisted. He’s barely clinging to humanity, whatever he is. He looks more beast than man, and abruptly Hux knows deep in his gut that  _ this _ is Snoke. This is the creature that Kylo so looked up to. He must have been so lonely, to allow something like Snoke so close.

Snoke’s face breaks into a sneer, as if he heard the thought. “You’re a feisty one aren’t you, Armitage? No wonder Kylo is fond of you.” He says, chuckling. “That foolish, sentimental child. He was always soft in the heart, against his better judgement. I tried to break him of it, but he just couldn’t give up his human side.”

“Mental was accurate.” Phasma mutters, “Sentimental? Maybe not.”

Hux feels bile rise in his throat, and struggles against whoever is holding him. They clench tighter, and he feels claws bite into his skin unlike the way Kylo’s fingernails had threatened to. Unlike Kylo’s grip, he doesn’t feel safe.

Deep down, he’d known that Kylo didn’t want to hurt him. Of all the beasts he’d met so far, and hadn’t even known about, Kylo was by far the gentlest. Even as big as he is, there’s something so tragically fragile about him. He remembers the boy in the photo, gap-toothed and wide eyed.

Whoever is clinging to him like a parasite won’t let him go, no matter what he tries. He’d at the mercy of the element of surprise, if he tries to run again. Timing it right is key.

“Is that why you threw him away?” Hux asks, voice steady against all odds. “You couldn’t make him into a fucking monster like you?”

Snoke looks all too pleased, “Oh no, Armitage Hux.” He says, “Kylo Ren is so much worse than I. He is the one who created all of the children I’ve taken in. He lost control, you see. He was so  _ frightened. _ ”

Hux feels as if he’s been gut punched, the breath catching in his lungs. “What?”

He can’t imagine the boy who’d pinned him to his bed systematically hunting the town down, sinking his teeth into them. He can’t imagine that boy  _ wanting _ to. The earnestness in Kylo’s eyes, the way he’d allowed Hux in if only because he was one of the few people in this town who actually came looking for him.

The way he knew that despite asking Hux to leave, if he showed up again he had the feeling Kylo wouldn’t turn him away.

“That’s why he was banished, child. He just couldn’t help himself. I had to push him away before he killed someone.” Snoke says, languidly. “He and the beast have always been one, even before I turned the metaphor into reality. I had to create a mediator, to ensure he wouldn’t hurt anyone else.”

“He was perfectly civilized when I was alone with him. Fuck mediation.” Hux snaps, and forgets timing entirely. He tries to pull toward Snoke instead, but the girl-- it must be her-- clings to him like a cat and laughs into his ear. The sound makes his stomach curdle.  

Snoke stares at him, disdain plain on his expression. “Was he? It must be because he’s dreamt of you. The fool probably thought he could keep his true nature at bay.”

“And I can.” Kylo’s voice is hard. “I’m the only one who can. Don’t bother lying to him. He can tell the truth for himself.”

Kylo is standing in the open doorway, taking advantage of his full height instead of slouching like he did walking through the hallways of their school. For the first time Hux sees what everyone else must, the fire in his eyes and the hard press of his teeth. Ready to fight, ready to attack at the slightest provocation.

And yet, fear doesn’t spread through him. He doesn’t even  _ know _ Kylo, not truly. But the feeling of calmness is bone deep.

“Back off, Kylo.” Phasma says, voice hard. “You’re not welcome here.”

“Fuck you, Phasma.” Kylo snaps, “Don’t play the tough guy act just because your friends are here. Everyone knows it’s a lie.”

“Is it true?” Hux asks, “That you’re one of them? That you made all of these people… whatever they are?”

Kylo doesn’t meet his eyes, his stance tense. “I was the first.” He says, finally.

“Tell him what you are, Kylo.” Phasma says, voice venomous. “Admit to him what you’ve done.”

“So you did.” Hux says, breath squeezing from his chest in a way that has nothing to do with the girl pinning him to her. She loosens her hold on him only slightly, watching Kylo in clear amusement.

“Yes, to answer your question.” Kylo says, finally. “I did turn them. Because Snoke ordered me to.”

The entire room silences again, heads turning to look between he and Snoke. Hux stares at him until Kylo finally meets his eyes. “Was it worth it?” Hux asks, quietly.

“No.” Kylo says.

The room suddenly breaks into chaos, voices yelling on either side of him. He sees a flash of red, feels someone grab him hard and a spike of pain before a blur of black barrels directly into him and he can hear someone screaming.

Phasma pulls him to his feet, face white. “Get out of here, Hux.” She snaps.

“What--” he starts, turning toward the black and white beasts. A red shape pounces, joining in the blur.

“Run!” She yells into his ear, and pushes him toward the door.

“No!” Hux snaps, grabbing a plank and pulling it from the frame it’s barely attached to. He smashes it directly into the white wolf-like creature, hitting it in the face when it turns on him. “Fuck off!” He yells at it and turns on the red furred beast that holds the black wolf’s throat-- it is a wolf, he’s more sure of it now-- in his mouth. “Let go, you asshole. How dare you double-team him like that--”

Phasma is suddenly beside him, kneeling over the bleeding black wolf’s prone form.

_ His eyes would be yellow like this. This is him. Kylo is his shadow man, turning to him from the trees. By the light of the moon. _

_ Because he’s a monster. _

“Fuck.” Hux drops to his knees, putting a hand over the beast’s throat. It-- no, Kylo-- growls at him weakly, one paw twitching toward him. “Why would you do that?” Hux whispers, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket and pulling at it, ignoring the blood clinging to his hand. “Why would you attack him like that when you knew all of them would turn on you? You had no chance, you stupid animal--”

People move in closer. Phasma growls at them, intimidating them away.

“Because he was going to bite you.” Phasma answers, emptily as she turns her gaze from them back to Kylo.

“No, Kylo was just standing there at first, he wouldn’t have--.” Hux snaps at her, fumbling as he tries to press the jacket to Kylo’s throat. “I would think he’d have better aim, he missed completely. He jumped right into me so--”

“Not Kylo, Thanisson.” She interrupts, eyeing the injured wolf nearby licking an injured paw. The girl-- the white wolf-- is nowhere to be found. He knows he hit her hard. He hopes it hurt. “Kylo prevented you from getting bit, but he left himself open for her to grab his side. When he turned on her, Thanisson went for the throat.”

Kylo makes a wet coughing sort of noise, cracking noises following an odd grisly transformation back into human. His eyes stay closed, breaths shallow. His clothes are torn around the bite in his side, face bleeding where the fur had obscured it.

Hux glances over his shoulder to see that most of the room has cleared out, minus a few people wearing all black and standing a distance away. Snoke, and half of the room’s partygoers are gone. The other half is too intimidated to get close, likely because of Phasma or the black figures lurking close by.  

“Who are they?” He asks Phasma quietly, even though he has a guess. She glances over, upper lip lifting before she looks back down at Kylo and his side that she’s putting pressure on.

“The Knights of Ren.” She says, simply. “They’re here for him, obviously. Kylo is their master. Their pack leader, I suppose. They’re shit out of luck. Kylo is the only one who was ever able to heal people, but he could never heal himself. That’s the tradeoff, I guess.”

“What?” Hux asks, confused. “What about healing people?” His eyelids feel heavy, head slightly fuzzy.

Phasma laughs bitterly. “Kylo has special powers, beside the shapeshifter thing. That was what Snoke infected him with. Infected us all with, I suppose.” She eyes Kylo, “If he’s to be believed, anyway.”

_ Snoke’s apprentice, indeed.  _ “Then Snoke has that ability too?” Hux deduces, relieved when he hears cars pulling in and the Knights moving toward the doors. The rest of the partiers finally dissipate, and the room is far too quiet without the din of talking around them.

It makes the fuzziness in his hearing thicker.

“Mental powers? Yeah probably. But I don’t think he knew how to heal. Kylo was… different in that way. Snoke said something about him having too much light in him, or something like that.” She shook her head, “Fuck. Maybe he really did use Kylo and then throw him under the bus for it.”

“Ben!” Leia’s voice yelled, startling Hux as she dropped down beside him. Kylo doesn’t move. She cradles his head in her lap, smoothing his hair back from his face with sorrow clear on her face. Her hands are bloody. So are his. So are Phasma’s.

Blood pools under Kylo, dark and thick looking in the half-dark of the party lights.

Hux wants to close his eyes, and fights it. “What was it, that you put in the beer?” He asks Phasma, eyeing her from the side.

She smiles apologetically, and it’s all the answer he needs to know that it’s something  _ not good. _

* * *

When he wakes up, Maratelle is sitting beside his bed asleep. His father is nowhere to be seen, but he doesn’t care enough to be disappointed. He sighs, glancing at the IV connected to his arm. He nudges the IV pole, relieved when it moves slightly.

He glances at Maratelle again, grabs the IV pole and slips out of bed. He makes it as far as a doorway before a nurse stops him, irritated.

“Please,” Hux asks, “I need to see Kylo Ren.”

“We don’t have patient under that name.” She says, clearly annoyed.

“Ugh. I mean Ben. Ben Solo.” He says, remembering the rusted old mailbox. Her expression changes slightly, toward apprehension. “He saved my life.” He tells her, hoping that emotional manipulation at least will pressure her toward what he wants.

Her expression softens. “Oh.” She says, glancing down the hall. “He isn’t in this unit.” She says, nervously tucking hair behind her ear. “He was in Critical Care. He should be out by now, assuming they’ve finished stitching him up.”

“Thank you.” Hux says, “What is his room number?”

She frowns at him. “I’ll come and let you know when  _ you’ve _ been released, and if his parents allow it.” She says, ushering him back into his room.

Maratelle isn’t pleased with him, but she withstands yelling at him. She’s unlike his father in that way, and he wonders how they ever married when they’re nothing alike. She was rich, he was rich, and he assumed it was an arranged marriage and nothing more. She had certainly never seemed heartbroken that he’d slept with another woman, anyway.

“So this… Kylo boy.” She starts, and he instantly gives her a suspicious look. “Is he a friend of yours?” She asks, her voice slightly hopeful.

He wants to laugh at himself. “I wouldn’t say that.” Hux says, sighing and leaning back into the pillows. “But he’s the closest that I’ve ever had, I guess. And Phasma too, maybe. It’s complicated.” They’re the only people who haven’t outright tried to hurt him. Yet.  

She puts a hand on his arm. “Well. I’ll take that, anyway.” She says, pleased.

He hums, content that at least he now knows that Kylo isn’t dead.

_ Blood spills over his stomach, his face, his throat. He’s paler than Hux has ever seen, like a ghost. And he doesn’t move, even when the paramedics pick him up and strap him into that table. He doesn’t move even when Hux feels himself start to fall backward-- _

He jolts in his hospital bed, startling Maratelle who gives him a small smile over her crossword puzzle.

“Has that nurse come back yet?” He asks, impatiently.

Maratelle gives him a stern look, “Yes. But first, we have to make sure  _ you’re _ okay.”

“I just passed out. Blood or something.” He excuses.

"Except there was a drug test.” Maratelle says, “And we know that you were drugged. Did something happen? Are you alright?”

Hux blanches, “What? Of course I am, it was an… well. I don’t know if it was an accident but it was just a stupid prank someone pulled. It’s high school.” He shifts, “What’s happened to Kylo?”

“He’s fine.” She says, eyeing him. “He’s resting, like you should be. I don’t know what happened to that boy but it must have been pretty gruesome if he ended up in Critical Care.” It’s not quite an accusation, but her tone tells him that she knows quite well that he’s not telling her everything.

Nor does he plan to.

“Some… less than polite people ganged up on him.” Hux says, disapprovingly. “And they hurt him very badly. They were going to attack me. But he got in their way.”

_ They turned on him, why the hell wouldn’t they have turned on me. I should have known-- _

_ What, that it was some insane shapeshfting cult? Right. _

“Why would they want to hurt you?” Maratelle questions, bewildered.

“Because they’re crazy cultists up here, if you hadn’t realized.” Hux says, angrily. “And Kylo… well. He got the worst of what they were capable of. I don’t think they would try it again.”

But Snoke is still around, he knows their secrets and no one would ever believe him.

After what had been done to him, it was entirely possible even Kylo couldn’t escape them at this point. They were all doomed, and he’d somehow known it the first time he walked up to that house and felt eyes from the treeline.

If he’d followed his instincts… he’d have only made his father angrier. Nothing would have changed.

Would anything have been different if Kylo had told him the truth? No. Hux would have laughed in his face,  _ they weren’t kidding when they called you mental _ . He’d have said. Maybe Kylo had known that somehow. He did have weird mental abilities, didn’t he? So he’d veered off, tried to save him with ignorance.

_ Stupid boy. _

“Well they better not.” Maratelle says, “I have an attorney on standby if they even think about harming a hair on your head.”

_ Yes, Mr. So-and-so, these werewolves did attack me. And they’re thinking of it again. Right.  _ “Thank you.” Hux says instead, itching over where the girl’s nails had dug into him. Had she been holding on? Had she even been the one holding him? He couldn’t remember anymore.

Things had gotten so fuzzy. Damnit, Phasma.

It took another hour before he was cleared, and allowed in to look at Kylo. His face and throat were bandaged, and Hux could only imagine that his side must be as well.

_ If he wasn’t infected before, he certainly is now.  _ Hux thinks, frowning to himself.  _ Could it even be cured in the first place?  _

_ No. _ The answer is clear and sudden, and Hux catches himself before he jumps back away from Kylo. The last thing he needs is to be put in a psychiatric ward for voices responding to him in someone elses’ voice.  _ Stop. Now  _ **_you’re_ ** _ the one that’s being dramatic.  _

_ How the hell are you talking to me?  _ Hux asks, heart pounding hard in his chest. 

_ You don’t need to yell your thoughts. I can hear you. And I can reach out for you. That’s why.  _

_ Why would you reach out for me? Just open your mouth.  _ Hux frowns. 

_ I’m not ready to wake up yet.  _ Kylo? Responds to him.  _ Your head is so much clearer than mine.  _

_ Strange, since I was the one that was drugged.  _

Kylo laughs. It’s an odd projection of his actual laugh, but Hux can still hear it.  _ At least they knew the only way they’d get to you is by drugging you. I ruined that for them pretty quickly.  _

_ How did you know where I was? How did you know they’d do that?  _

_ You’re not the first they’ve brought into their ritual. I knew when they drove by that they’d smell me on you. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. They thought that I told you what I am. What we all are. They took you away to do counter damage. To turn you, so you couldn’t tell anyone.   _

Hux glances at Leia, and back at Kylo.  _ So it’s true. This entire town?  _

_ My parents aren’t. But they know what I am. A few other people in town aren’t, by sheer coincidence. But almost everyone else is. I was the one who turned Phasma and Thanisson on Snoke’s orders. And then they started, and it spread further and further.  _

_ How do your parents know?  _ Hux sits in the chair beside Kylo’s bed, watching his face. Kylo’s cheek twitches, before settling back into stillness. 

_ They saw what I became. The first time was the most painful and mindless. It was easy to bite Thanisson and Phasma then. I wanted to. I wanted to destroy. But I gained my humanity over the beast, and Snoke was disappointed that I tamed myself. I wasn’t good enough for him anymore. He wanted a weapon.  _

_ What an asshole.  _ Hux supplies, emotionlessly.  _ Your parents saw you bite people?  _

_ No. Only that I transformed. I’ve never seen my mother look like that.  _

He sees odd flashes, the sorrow and horror in her eyes. Then it’s gone.  _ She still kept you. Still cared about you. I’d say that’s pure love right there.  _ Hux tells him, maybe a little envious.  _ If I changed in front of my father, he’d have shot me in the face.  _

Kylo opens his eyes then, turning his head to look at Hux. The bandages go down to his shoulder. He must have had so many stitches put in.  _ What have they done to you?  _ He asks, and he knows Kylo hears it. Kylo only smiles at him. 

_ If your dad pulls a gun on you, I’ll kill him.  _ Kylo says, into his mind. It's a promise, if he's ever heard one.

Hux’s hand instinctively moves to where they’d grabbed him. 

Dread fills the pit of his stomach. 

_ And what if Snoke gets to me first?  _ Hux asks, holding his gaze. 

Kylo’s eyes glint, the slightest hint of yellow before it’s gone.  _ I’ll kill him too.  _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm SithlordofRen on Tumblr, feel free to come say hi if you'd like :)


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